20/01/2005 4:24:50 pm
The World Gets Better, Part IV. Today, the Economics Editor of the Financial Times, Martin Wolf, presented a very interesting analysis of globalisation in a great speech at a very successful conference by Timbro. He mentioned some positive facts about the world?s history following the development of the increasingly global capitalism: Between 1820 and 2000, the share of the world?s population that lives in extreme poverty decreased from 85 % to 23 %. And the global population is several times larger today! The share of the global population that lives on less than one dollar a day decreased from 39,5 % in 1981 to 21,3 % in 2001. A decrease by almost 50 % in 20 years! Everything isn?t good yet, obviously, but if we set the forces of capitalism free instead of stopping them - as some wish - the positive development will continue.